MSHA Performance Analysis Briefing Report
Client Information
Organization: Mine Safety and Health Administration
Client Contact: James M. Baugher
Title: Management Program Analyst
Educational Policy Analyst
Address: 1100 Wilson Boulevard
Room 2142
City, State, Zip: Arlington, VA 22209-3939
Phone: (202) 693-9570
Fax: (202) 693-9571
Email:
GMU Design Team Members
Lisa-Marie Aird:
Tammi Fritz: Editor
Lisa Knudson: Project Lead (wrote Introduction, Priorities for Development, Resources,
Drivers & Barriers, Potential Solutions, Recommendations, and Appendices)
Irene Montano: Contact person
Schedule
The implementation of the MSHA Haulage Truck Operator Training Program Tutorial is projected for spring 2003. All documentation deliverables and prototype will be completed by December, 2002.
Interim Project Deliverables include:
October 2, 2002 Performance Analysis Briefing Report
October 14, 2002 Briefing Report (Needs Assessment, Audience and Task Analysis, Objectives and Measurement)
November 1, 2002 Design Treatment
November 11, 2002 Storyboards or Wireframes, Sitemaps or Flowcharts
December 2, 2002 Prototype, Production and Usability Testing.
Introduction
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) was created in 1978, when the 1977 Act transferred the Federal mine safety program from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Labor. MSHA is required by Congress to enforce mandatory safety and health standards for both surface and underground coal and metal/nonmetal mines in the United States as a way of eliminating fatal injuries. MSHA works toward a reduction of serious accidents by promoting proper safety and health conditions in the mining industry.
To drastically lower health hazards, the Mine Act (of 1977) requires MSHA to visit and inspect every mining and mineral processing operation in the US regardless of size and location. Other provisions call for issuing detailed regulations on basic safety and health training for miners, upgrading and strengthening many existing mine safety and health laws, making changes in the civil penalty system applying to rules violators, and increasing participation of miners or their representatives in lawful safety activities. MSHA strives for improved working conditions by encouraging the education of our Nations miners, as well as MSHA personnel.
MSHA has concluded through collected data that safety and health in the mining industry has improved greatly since the early 20th Century. The following chart shows the number of mining deaths in the United States from 1910 to 2001.
Total mining fatalities reached the lowest level in history in 2001; the Mine Safety and Health Administration reported 72 mining deaths in 2001, the lowest figure since official record keeping began in 1910 and 13 fewer than in calendar 2000. At the same time, a plateau has appeared in recent years. Therefore, the top two of five MSHA’s Goals are:
1) Reduce fatal accidents by 15 percent per year
2) Reduce Nonfatal Days-Lost due to injuries by 50 percent over four years?
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fatality rate for coal miners is more than seven times higher than for the industry as a whole, making it one of the most dangerous jobs in America. In addition, coal-mining fatalities have increased while fatalities in other below-ground mining are on a decline” (Denver Post.com editorial - http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E73%257E762074,00.html ). Although U.S. coal mine production is at its highest level in history and mining fatalities are much lower than in the past, coal mining deaths have increased for the past three years. “The number of coal mine fatalities nationally fell each year from 1990 through 1998, when they reached an all-time low of 29. In 1999, 35 coal miners died on the job” (Courier Journal.com – Louisville, KY – http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2002/01/04/ke010402s132294.htm ). The metal and non-metal mining sector, however, has set a historic low with 30 fatalities during 2001, compared with 47 in 2000 and the previous low of 40 in 1994.
Although coal mines have a higher fatality rate than metal/nonmetal mines, both types of mines report that the highest incidents of fatalities occur due to powered haulage in either underground or surface mines. This can be viewed by the following charts that show the number and type of fatalities in coal mines and metal/nonmetal mines for the past five years.
In the last five years, there have been 114 fatalities in the mining industry involving surface haulage. Seventy-Three of the fatalities, or 64 percent, involved trucks. Some of the causes of truck accidents have been caused by: loss of control of the vehicle; faulty brakes or other defective equipment; driving too fast for conditions; overloading the truck; use of unsafe dumping practices; and use of parking procedures which did not hold the truck. Other causes of fatalities have been persons on foot getting run over by trucks or pinned between two vehicles. These types of accidents can occur if an operator is not familiar with the capabilities and limitations of the truck or doesn't perform a proper preoperational examination.
Safety Directors and Mine Managers have no efficient method of providing “Haulage Truck Operator Training” at this time. Our client, Mr. Baugher, has a vision to improve the mining industry by teaching people how to do their job better. He feels that training could help miners have better safety practices which would lead to less maintenance and ultimately a more productive mine. The overarching goal of this project is to increase the number of mine managers who are skilled at customizing safety training for the mines. This goal will be achieved by providing training to the mine and safety managers, which assists them in tailoring a task analysis template for haulage drivers provided by MSHA. This process should guarantee ownership of the training and task worksheets, and ultimately provide a safer environment.
Project Overview
The purpose of this tutorial is to demonstrate to the safety directors and mine managers the process of how to properly provide on-the-job training through one-day, on-site workshops. The workshops will be made up of various mine employees; truck drivers, mechanics, and managers that work with the haulers. At the completion of the workshop the team will have produced a comprehensive task worksheet that lists the sequential job steps.
Originally, MSHA organized a week-long workshop developed and conducted by the Navy. The national joint committee, comprised of manufacturers, maintenance people, truck operators, safety staff, haulage supervisors and MSHA, were organized to proceed through the process of developing a systematic task worksheet. The process began with a brainstorming session where all team members silently jotted individual haul truck operating tasks on post-it notes. Then, the still non-verbal group arranged job steps in the order that they are normally accomplished.
Once the group concluded the organization of the tasks, the facilitator developed the results into a Spider, or visual mind map, using MindManager, a mind mapping and brainstorming software tool. The Spider was then converted into a final worksheet document, using MSWord, which provides a comprehensive list of job duties that can be used by the trainer to check his own knowledge before he trains other employees and ultimately provides a safer mine.
Since this initial workshop, MSHA has piloted a few one-day individual mine workshops. During these workshops, the mine employees involved with haul trucks proceed through a series of steps to revise the previously developed worksheet and customize it to meet the specific needs of their mine. The participants of these pilot programs have felt that the workshops are productive and worthwhile; the overall comments have been exceptionally positive. MSHA feels that there is a shift in the attitudes and actual safety behaviors of the participants, since the mine employees are now playing a constructive role in developing their own job aides.
These pilot programs have been led and facilitated by MSHA employees. However, MSHA would like to train safety directors and mine and maintenance managers to become facilitators so that all training would be at the local mine level. This would allow faster expansion of this process and completed task worksheets to all mines, which should produce a higher degree of ownership among the mines and ensure the follow-through of the job aide. Also, this would lighten MSHA’s responsibilities with working at every workshop and allow time to be spent in other productive areas. Furthermore, once the process is introduced and familiar at a mine, the process of developing the task worksheet can be applied toward other specific jobs.
Resources
Human Resources
Stakeholder/Subject Matter Expert
Jim Baugher, MSHA’s Management Program Analyst and Educational Policy Analyst, is both the primary stakeholder and subject matter expert for this project. Mr. Baugher is the original requestor of assistance in developing a Web-based Instructional Tutorial. Mr. Baugher approached the GMU instructional design team with materials and a computer-based instructional idea for training mine managers to become facilitators of the task analysis workshop. As a further reference, Mr. Baugher’s content knowledge is one of the most valuable resources to the team. Mr. Baugher was asked six questions as a combined effort of both teams; the summary of his responses are included as a chart in Appendix A.
Additional Sources
Shannon Robinson, an MSHA intern, has provided valuable insight and assistance into the culture and operations of MSHA and the mines, as well as essential documents and additional sources. Don Conrad and Cathy Matchett, MSHA employees, were provided as additional human resources available to the instructional design team. Their responses provided the instructional design team with further information; the summary of their responses to the six questions is provided as a chart in Appendix B.
Non-Human Resources
General Information
The instructional design team obtained demographic information and statistical data for the current mines and mine employee population from the Internet. Additional documentation was provided by Mr. Baugher and Shannon Robinson and includes:
· Instructions to Pilot Users of Haulage Truck Operator Training;
· Haulage Truck Operator Training and Assessment Worksheet;
· Task Worksheet Completion Instructions;
· Haulage Truck Pilot Follow-up;
· Post Workshop Truck Pilot Feedback;
· Post Workshop Pilot Team Member’s Feedback;
· Example of Task/Checklist;
· Packet for Pilot Facilitators;
· Packet for Pilot Participants;
· Recommendations & Suggestions;
· Haul Truck Spider.
On-line Resources
The MSHA website, accessed at http://www.msha.gov, is a good source of information about the agency and mine data. The instructional design team has also been compiling a list of other online resources that will be useful to both the team and Mr. Baugher. The list includes other organizations, statistical data, articles, safety training, and injury prevention. The compilation of the Website’s URL and a description of its contents of what has been collected to date are provided in Appendix C. The instructional design team will continue to refine this list during the remainder of the semester and will deliver a final list to Mr. Baugher at the end of the project.
Drivers & Barriers
Our team has identified the following drivers and barriers that will assist or hinder us in completing the MSHA haul truck Project. The following is a list of the aligned drivers and barriers:
Drivers
/Barriers
Federally mandated occupational safety regulations exist.
/Attitude of mine employees (haul truck drivers) is that government is adversarial.
Federally mandated employee training regulations exist.
/Need buy-in of target audience to provide on-the-job-training (OJT) to drivers of haulers.
MSHA's goal is to reduce fatal accidents and non-fatal, days-lost injuries.
/Target audience (Safety Directors, Mine Managers and Maintenance Managers) has little time to read large amounts of training material and attend training that would take them away from their jobs.
MSHA personnel cannot provide training to all of the nation's mines.
/MSHA employees, Safety Inspectors, and Mine Managers can only be reached because all other participants (haul truck drivers and mine employees) have limited access to computers.
Most fatalities are the result of haul truck accidents.
/Time is generally scarce for workers; they only receive 30 minutes of haul operator training.
Potential Solutions
Based on answers from Mr. Jim Baugher, our client; Mr. Don Conrad and Ms. Cathy Matchett, additional sources; and the information collected from the MSHA Websites and other electronic resources, the instructional design team recognizes the need to provide a Haul Truck Web-Based Training Tutorial. The design team suggests the online tutorial include areas for:
1. Quotes from persons involved in previous groups (Testimonials)
2. A message board where employees can post their ideas
3. Graphics to illustrate the process
4. A tutorial on the facilitating process
5. A database of completed task lists.
The following chart illustrates the solutions and justifications to their corresponding drivers and barriers:
Drivers
/Barriers
/Solutions
/Justifications
Federally mandated occupational safety regulations exist.
/Attitude of mine employees (haul truck drivers) is that government is adversarial.
/Include quotes from persons involved in previous groups to illustrate how well this process works.
/Developing own task lists will show that they are “in-charge” of process and overall safety, not MSHA.
Federally mandated employee training regulations exist.
/Need buy-in of target audience to provide on-the-job-training (OJT) to drivers of haulers.
/Include a message board where employees can post their ideas, questions, and concerns of the training process.
/A support system for the managers will encourage them and guarantee them that they are not in this alone.
MSHA's goal is to reduce fatal accidents and non-fatal, days-lost injuries.
/Target audience (Safety Directors, Mine Managers and Maintenance Managers) has little time to read large amounts of training material and attend training that would take them away from their jobs.
/ Use very little text, and more white space and graphics so that the users won’t have as much to read and will be motivated to precede though the program. / Simple, clean-cut pages will not overwhelm the managers and help ensure that they continue through the tutorial.MSHA personnel cannot provide training to all of the nation's mines.
/MSHA employees, Safety Inspectors, and Mine Managers can only be reached because all other participants (haul truck drivers and mine employees) have limited access to computers.